Source: StarTrek.com
Jack B. Sowards, who scripted what many fans consider to be the best “Star Trek” movie, has died at the age of 78. Sowards wrote the screenplay for “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan,” and also shares “Story by” credit on the movie with Harve Bennett. A few years after “Khan,” Sowards also contributed to Star Trek: The Next Generation by writing the second-season episode “Where Silence Has Lease.”
In 1983 Jack was nominated for the Saturn Award for “Wrath of Khan.”
Sowards died on July 8 of complications from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease) and lung disease. He was living in the Valley Village community of Los Angeles.
Sowards was born in Texarkana, Arkansas, in 1929, joined the Marines after World War II in 1947, and then studied theater at the University of Texas at Austin. He moved to Hollywood in 1954 to pursue an acting career and found roles in low-budget war movies, local theater productions and TV shows including Peyton Place. He turned to writing and producing for TV in the 1960s, and became writer/story editor for Bonanza, High Chaparral, Daniel Boone, The Bold Ones: The Lawyers and The Streets of San Francisco. In later years he taught screenwriting at UCLA.
He is survived by four children, two grandchildren, and a sister.
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